by Ben Wolf
“When it came at me, I stabbed it through the roof of its mouth and into its head. The blood in the water was the shark’s, not mine.” Magnus huffed again. “Believe it or not, that was the easy part of what I had to deal with.”
Calum raised his eyebrows.
“The blood in the water must have attracted other sharks, because half a dozen others showed up within minutes of killing that one. I managed to escape while they fed on their kin, but by then the ship had already started to sail away. I swam after it until it slowed to a cruising speed, but by then it was already a day later.”
“You swam after us for an entire day?”
Magnus let the oars go slack again and he shrugged. “You are my friends. I could not let you perish on that pirate ship.”
A smile cracked Calum’s lips. “If it wasn’t for you, we would have. Brink was gonna kill us right when you showed up.”
Magnus began to row again. “I heard as much from Axel and Lilly this afternoon.”
Something smacked the wood under Calum’s feet and the whole lifeboat pitched to one side. He looked at Magnus.
“Sharks again,” he explained. “They bump against the bottoms or sides of the boat from time to time. I imagine they are testing for weaknesses.”
“Can they break through the hull?” Calum did not want to deal with any more lake creatures if he didn’t have to.
“The wood is stout, but I cannot say. They are imposing monsters. Easily the size of one of these boats. Maybe bigger. Even if they cannot break through, they could certainly tip the boats over with ease.” Magnus sighed. “I would like to tell you with certainty that we will make it back to Sharkville, but I cannot.”
Calum exhaled a long silent breath through his nostrils. The thought of ending up back in the water with one of those monstrosities again sent shudders from his spine down to his fingertips. For now, all he could do was put his trust in Magnus, the Overlord, and Lumen to see them through.
“I understand.”
“Are you hungry?” Magnus motioned toward Calum with his head. “Search that bag next to you. You should be able to find something to satisfy your stomach for awhile.”
As if on cue, a low rumble vibrated through Calum’s gut. “Yeah. Have you eaten?”
Magnus didn’t answer right away. “I will be alright.”
Calum’s shoulders drooped. “Magnus, you need to eat, too.”
“The way I see it, I still owe you for that chicken quarter you brought me that night when I was chained to that post at the quarry camp.” Magnus smiled. “I am happy to sacrifice so you may be satisfied. Besides, I think I swallowed a fish or two when I was swimming after the pirate ship. I should be good for awhile.”
“If you say so.” Calum sighed. “But you don’t owe me anything. If anything, I owe you for saving me. Again.”
Magnus shook his head. “As I have said before, we are friends, Calum. Friends owe each other nothing. Attempting to keep track is pointless because we will always owe each other, mutually. It is the Law of Debt in its purest, perfected form: we are indebted to each other forever.”
“I know what you mean.”
A dark sphere tumbled out of the bag and plunked on the wooden floor. Calum picked it up. An apple, bruised everywhere, but not rotten. Not long until it would begin to rot, though, either. He could eat that without feeling guilty.
Two pieces of stale bread, a small, dried-out piece of smoked fish, and that apple later, Calum lay back down and stared up at the stars. As he drifted back to sleep, he wished Lilly was sleeping “near” him instead of Axel.
He pushed the thought from his mind and closed his eyes once again.
“Calum, wake up!” Lilly’s voice cut through the blackness that blanketed Calum’s vision, and morning sunlight flooded his eyes.
He sat up abruptly again, and again his body reminded him to stop doing that. “What’s going on?”
“Something’s coming.” Her voice rang hollow with fear.
Calum scanned the surrounding waters and saw nothing aside from the other lifeboats following theirs. “What? Where are they?”
“No, not more pirates.” Lilly’s eyes widened. “Something in the water.”
Behind her, both Magnus and Axel, who now wore his armor again, rowed twice as fast as Magnus had last night. Determination—and hefty a dose of terror—etched into their expressions.
Whatever this was, it was bad.
Calum faced the lifeboat’s stern and scanned the water. Three large black silhouettes followed them. “More sharks?”
Lilly shook her head. “Worse. Much worse.”
“How do you know?”
“I was scouting around, and I saw it. A gigantic dark form under the water, headed toward us from behind.” Lilly stared at him. “We’re in trouble.”
Calum glanced into the water behind the boat again. The three shark silhouettes weren’t anywhere to be found. Definitely not a good sign.
“Do you know what it is?” Calum asked Magnus, who continued to row with purpose.
“Not for sure…” His oars carved into the water, and he spoke between rows. “…but it is probably… a Jyrak.”
Calum blinked. “A what?”
“No.” Lilly shook her head. “Jyraks don’t exist. They’re a myth.”
“Then what do you think… you saw in the water?” Magnus pressed.
Lilly gave no answer.
“Huh?” Calum glanced between them.
“Jyraks.” Magnus didn’t stop his furious rowing. “Monstrous lake creatures… definitely not a myth.”
Lilly shook her head. “No one has ever seen one and lived to tell about it.”
“No one that you have heard of.” Magnus dug his oars into the water three times before he continued. “My father saw one once… in this very lake.”
Lilly started to say something, but a rumble sounded from behind her and Calum. They both turned.
From the water emerged a dark scaled monstrosity of gigantic proportions, seemingly at half-speed. A long neck lifted a colossal head from the water, complete with jagged bronze teeth and a dark red tongue.
Spikes adorned its head and two large horns jutted out from just behind its glowing, pupil-less yellow eyes. The Jyrak’s massive arms raised out of the water, also laden with spikes. Black talons tipped each of the four webbed fingers on its hands.
A droning roar split the air as the Jyrak slowly rose to its full height. It had to be the biggest creature in existence. Calum couldn’t imagine how anything could be larger—and he was having difficulty even believing the Jyrak was real.
Then it started toward them.
Magnus stopped rowing. “We are in trouble.”
Chapter Ten
Calum pointed to the sky. “Lilly, get in the air now. Head south. Find out how far we are from land. And take the food with you. If our boat goes down, we can’t risk losing that food.”
Lilly nodded and took to the sky with the sack of food over her shoulder.
“Axel and Magnus,” Calum said. “We need to row. We gotta try to get away from it.”
“You direct us,” Magnus ordered. “We will handle the rowing. We need your eyes and your focus.”
Calum nodded, and the two of them began to row again in a furious rhythm.
The Jyrak droned another roar again and started after them.
Calum glanced back at the other lifeboats. He had to keep track of their progress forward and everything that was happening behind them.
In their boat, Puolo and Jake tried to keep pace, but even with several men rowing, they had a hard time keeping up with Magnus and Axel. A third lifeboat chased theirs, but the fourth, the one with Yurgev’s friends, cut hard to the right.
Fine. If they wanted to split off from the group, so be it. Calum would use it to his advantage. He leaned back. “Magnus, Axel—hard left.”
Their lifeboat angled left and sliced through the water away from the Jyrak. To Calum’s relief, it glanced b
etween its two options, then it turned toward the prisoners’ boat.
“Row harder!” Calum yelled. Though the Jyrak had chosen to pursue the other boat, that didn’t mean Calum’s and the other boats were in the clear. But at least they could gain some distance from it in the meantime.
Their boat sped forward, more due to Magnus’s efforts than Axel’s. Each row on his part seemed to nearly lift the small boat out of the water, almost as if they were leaping forward instead of cruising along the water.
Calum glanced back again.
The Jyrak closed the distance to the prisoners’ lifeboat in two colossal steps and reached for it. The men below screamed as its humongous hand grasped their lifeboat like a toy. Two of them squelched between its fingers and fell a hundred feet to the water below, but the others disappeared into the Jyrak’s deadly mouth along with the fragmented boat.
The sight horrified Calum. Yes, those men had meant Axel and him harm, but seeing them eaten by this monster shook Calum to his core.
“Calum, get down!” Axel yelled from behind him.
Calum’s head swiveled forward in time to see the Jyrak’s gigantic tail swinging toward them. He ducked as low as he could, and the tail swept over their lifeboat with only a few feet to spare, then it smashed into the water in front of Puolo’s lifeboat. The waves launched the lifeboats in opposite directions and capsized Puolo’s lifeboat.
Calum pointed at them. “Circle back and pick them up!”
Axel shook his head and kept rowing. “We can’t save them and still be able to escape.”
“Axel is right,” Magnus called over the noise. “We must continue forward. One of the other lifeboats is already heading toward the survivors to pick them up.”
Calum didn’t like the idea of leaving anyone behind, but the others seemed to have the situation handled, so he just nodded.
Behind them, the Jyrak slowly turned its attention toward the other lifeboats with another droning roar, and the lifeboat behind Puolo’s helped some of the stragglers in the water into their boat, including Jake.
Puolo didn’t climb in. Somehow, he managed to flip his lifeboat back over, and he clambered inside. He snatched a pair of oars floating nearby and rowed with fury toward the Jyrak.
Jake hollered and reached for him from the other lifeboat, but his comrades wouldn’t let him dive back in to go after his father. Puolo waved and shouted something Calum couldn’t make out, then he ground his oars into the surf.
Calum’s lifeboat lurched forward again, and he dropped onto his side. When he made it back up, he saw Jake’s lifeboat chasing after theirs and making decent time with the extra hands rowing.
All the while, Puolo’s lifeboat raced toward the Jyrak. Once Puolo came within range, he waved his arms and yelled.
The Jyrak reared its head back with another droning roar and slammed his hand down on Puolo’s lifeboat, smashing it to pieces. Puolo disappeared under the surf and never resurfaced.
Calum cringed. By stalling the Jyrak, Puolo might have just saved them all, but it had cost him his life.
Lilly swooped in close and kept pace with their lifeboat as Magnus and Axel continued to row. She shouted, “There’s land in sight! You’re almost there.”
Calum shielded his eyes from the sunlight and gazed south. Sure enough, he saw dry land in the distance, and hope filled his chest.
“We can make it,” he said to Magnus and Axel. To Lilly, he called, “Now get back to shore before that thing gets you.”
She nodded and zipped away with the sack of food still on her back.
They cruised along the water at a good speed, but when Calum looked back, he realized they’d separated from the second lifeboat too much, which was also heading toward the shore, albeit at a different angle.
Worse yet, the Jyrak was coming after Calum’s boat now.
In four enormous steps, it closed the distance to them and reached down for their boat. It would have grabbed them in its first grasp had the water swell from its steps not pushed them just out of range again.
If Calum hadn’t totally believed in the Overlord before, it didn’t matter now—he called out to Him just the same.
Real or not, the Overlord didn’t stop the Jyrak’s next swipe. Its taloned fingers knifed down toward them.
“Bail out!” Magnus shouted.
Calum, Axel, and Magnus dove into the water just before the Jyrak’s hand pulverized the lifeboat. When Calum surfaced, he saw Axel clawing at the water toward Magnus, who had surfaced several yards ahead of his position.
Calum swam the same direction with every ounce of energy he had left. As before, his armor threatened to sink him, but he’d regained enough energy to keep his head above water for the time being. Even so, he couldn’t keep it up forever, so he swam toward a long piece of curved wood, almost big enough to lie on, floating nearby.
As the Jyrak smashed the boat, its tail whipped around behind it again. The tail’s velocity created a swell that pushed Jake’s lifeboat back toward them. Calum saw the swell approaching and grabbed onto the large piece of his broken lifeboat.
As the swell hit, Calum kicked his legs to propel himself higher out of the water. He positioned the flattest part of the lifeboat against the water and let the cascade carry him toward the shore on his belly. A rush of excitement filled his chest, and he almost whooped as the waves ferried him along.
The same wave plowed into Axel and Magnus, and Calum zipped past where they had just been. He considered waving at them as he cruised by, but he decided it was more important to hang on instead.
The wave died slowly, and it deposited Calum in the water only about three quarters of the way back to shore. Jake’s lifeboat actually ended up closer to shore than he did. He held onto his board and craned his head back for a look.
Axel’s head popped up from the water about twenty yards behind him, and Magnus’s did as well, but about five yards closer. Another man’s head surfaced near Axel.
It was one of the two prisoners from Yurgev’s cell who hadn’t been eaten. He launched toward Axel and pushed him under the water, then swam toward the shoreline.
A hand emerged from the surf behind the prisoner’s head and yanked him under the water, then Axel popped back up. He jerked backward and the prisoner surfaced again, only to get Axel’s fist in his face.
Their struggle continued, and they traded off who went under the water and who got to breathe as the Jyrak reached down toward them.
“Axel!” Calum yelled.
Axel looked at him, and the prisoner dunked him under the water again. As the Jyrak’s arm dropped down, the prisoner held a flailing Axel under the water. When the Jyrak’s shadow passed over him, the prisoner’s angry face went blank, and his eyes widened.
The Jyrak’s hand pummeled the prisoner. When the Jyrak drew its hand out of the water, Calum could barely see the prisoner between its fingers, and Axel hung from the Jyrak’s hand by his left arm.
Though he tried to pull free, he couldn’t. He was stuck.
The water below Axel dropped away, and his left shoulder socket burned with strain. He swore and cursed, but he couldn’t get free. Above him, the prisoner’s blood mingled with the lake water dripping from the Jyrak’s massive hand, and his bare foot protruded just above the webbing between two of the Jyrak’s fingers.
Axel twisted his body and tried to get out, but it didn’t work. The Jyrak’s sprawling chest passed by and gave way to its neck as Axel rose higher and higher. It wouldn’t be long until its bronze teeth came into view.
The shouts of his friends sounded from below, now as distant as when his mother used to call to him from across their field to come home for dinner. He should never have left his farm.
At this point, even if he could get free from the Jyrak’s grip, the fall to the water below would kill him, but Axel drew his sword from his belt nonetheless. If he were going to die, he’d cut off a chunk of the Jyrak’s tongue on his way. Then he’d give it the worst stomachache in J
yrak history.
Before Axel’s eyes, bronze teeth, each of them pointed and longer than he was tall, separated. A forked tongue emerged from behind them and licked the air. The Jyrak’s jaws opened wide, ready to receive him, and a blast of hot air that reeked of death washed over him.
Terror gripped Axel’s entire body, but he refused to succumb to it. Instead, he got angry. The mismatch of one little human with a sword against a beast of this size was enough to infuriate him. It wasn’t fair, and he was going to make sure the Jyrak knew it.
Axel timed his swing as best as he could, but the Jyrak thrust him almost directly into its throat. Axel’s sword clanged off its teeth, and he fell onto his side.
Next to Axel, the prisoner’s mangled body crunched between the Jyrak’s bronze teeth. The Jyrak’s jaws closed, and darkness replaced the sunlight.
Horror saturated Calum’s chest. Axel was gone, devoured by the Jyrak along with the prisoner. He couldn’t believe it had happened, even despite seeing it with his own eyes.
Something latched onto Calum’s shoulder with so much force that his head almost submerged under the water. Magnus’s hand.
“We must get to shore before it comes for us next.” Magnus’s voice rang with tones of sadness and anger, but mostly with urgency. “We can do nothing for him now. Come on.”
Calum hated that Magnus was right, but he couldn’t deny it. He clenched his teeth and dug into the surf with his tired arms.
The putrid stench of decay and rotten flesh burned Axel’s nostrils. The Jyrak’s tongue slapped him against the roof of its mouth and toward its throat, but he dug the fingers of his left hand into its squishy flesh.
He maneuvered his sword and jammed the point into the Jyrak’s gums at the base of the right side of its bronze teeth. Glowing orange blood spurted onto his face and armor. It tingled like warm liquid metal in his mouth, and he spat it out.
The Jyrak jerked, and its mouth opened wide in a deafening roar that knocked Axel onto his back. Still, this was his chance to get out. His only chance.